my first real african culture encounter

Today Amanda and I went with the Whitleys to have lunch at an African friend of theirs home. The woman was very very nice and had spent all morning cooking lunch for all of us and a few friends and neighbors. Apparently this woman welcomes anyone to her home for a meal or whatever and would die before turning someone away. The family is from Senegal and the food was amazing. It was a rice dish with chicken and onions and peppers and we all ate from one big platter together. We each had our little corner and went to work. What was also interesting and a little strange was the woman would grab the chicken from the platter and break it apart with her bare hands and drops pieces of it into each of our eating areas, which may sound gross but it was actually really cool to experience the closeness of their culture. Later, a guy, who is a friend of the hostess who is also from senegal, made some traditional Senegalese tea which took some time but was really cool to watch. For those who don't know me well, I hate tea, but when you add 4 cups of sugar to anything I am sure to like it. That being a major component to their tea, it was delicious and I loved it.
I also learned that these Africans love to have company over for hours. So we hung out for a few hours talking and just watching tv. Mrs. Whitley (tiffany) said that the woman would love for us to come over any and all the time and that just sitting on her couch and watching tv there would make her love us. If all I have to do is be fed and sit on a couch and watch some tv to make friends around here it looks like I am going to be quite a popular girl in this neghborhood ( and a quite large one too, or gorda as they say here). But it was a really cool experience to really just hangout with africans and get a feel of their culture. I am really excited to be spending my summer around these kind hearted people.
Later Amanda and I are gonna go to the beach and chill and run. Running on the beach is an experience in itself, considering that everyone stares at you while you run by them. I guess it is rather difficult to blend in around here when you are tall, blonde and a bit pale. Amanda and I are also trying to make some friends with the locals but except for being constantly hit on and "hollered at" by spanish and romanian men, we have had no such luck. Tomorrow we will be having our first go with the public bus transportation. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, we need it.